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What Makes a Baby: An Inclusive and Imaginative Illustrated Guide to the Modern Family

A playful illustrated primer for every kind of family and every kind of kid.

By Maria Popova

Benjamin Franklin’s oft-cited proclamation that nothing in the world is certain except death and taxes omits another existential inevitability, and arguably one no less pleasant — the question every parent dreads and no parent ever escapes: where do babies come from? After illustrator Sophie Blackall’s sweet and honest primer, here comes a very different but no less delightful answer from author Cory Silverberg and illustrator Fiona Smyth.

Imaginative and inclusive, What Makes a Baby (public library) is a modern-day, queer, colorful reimagining of Peter Mayle’s 1987 classic Where Did I Come From?. The playful illustrations and simple but intelligent text illuminate the basic biology of reproduction while honoring today’s diversity of families, of genders and gender identities, and of how kids can come into a family.

We learn, for instance, what a sperm is, but aren’t told that it always comes from the “father,” nor even from a “man” — simply what function in serves in creating a baby, unmooring the reproductive process from limiting definitions of gender and parental roles.

Inside the egg there are so many stories all about the body the egg came from.

Inside the sperm, just like the egg, there are so many stories all about the body the sperm came from.

When an egg and a sperm meet, they swirl together in a special kind of dance. As they dance, they talk to each other.

The egg tells the sperm all the stories it has to tell about the body it came from.

And the sperm tells the egg all the stories it has to tell about the body it came from.

Silverberg, a writer and sex-educator raised by a children’s librarian mother and sex therapist father, envisioned the book a few years ago, when all of a sudden many of his friends started having kids. There didn’t seem to be a book on baby-making that was lyrical and beautiful but biologically accurate, illuminating but not dreadfully pedagogical, a celebration of diversity but not a piece of self-righteous political propaganda. So he wrote one.

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For more than 12 years, Brain Pickings has remained free (and ad-free). It takes me hundreds of hours a month to research and compose, and thousands of dollars to sustain. Your support really matters. If you find any joy and value in what I do, please consider becoming a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good lunch.

Monthly donation

One-time donation

Sunday newsletter

Brain Pickings has a free Sunday digest of the week's most interesting and inspiring articles across art, science, philosophy, creativity, children's books, and other strands of our search for truth, beauty, and meaning. Here's an example. Like? Claim yours:

midweek newsletter

Also: Because Brain Pickings is in its twelfth year and because I write primarily about ideas of a timeless character, I have decided to plunge into my vast archive every Wednesday and choose from the thousands of essays one worth resurfacing and resavoring. Subscribe to this free midweek pick-me-up for heart, mind, and spirit below — it is separate from the standard Sunday digest of new pieces:

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